Arcana of Magick
by Bazylia de Grean
Summary: "You think this is another illusion?" "No," he answers. "And here's proof." He reaches out to smooth down her hair. A spark passes between her hair and his fingers. "Almost like magic, isn't it?" To his astonishment, Dante feels he is smiling. "Yes. Almost like magic." / ARCANUM. Magic-technology conflict and other things in disputes between the Living One and Dante.


Special thanks to my fabulous beta, **Janka**.

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**Arcana of magick**

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The tavern door opens and the salty smell of the sea breezes inside. Dante shifts his gaze from the wine he has been seeping and upwards, and suddenly he _knows_, even before the woman appears on the threshold. There is absolutely nothing unusual about her, and maybe that is why Dante feels, guesses that it is one of these moments that go unnoticed, when fate changes.

The stranger asks for his help and Dante agrees, because she seems an experienced enough traveller. That is one of his reasons, but not the most important one. Travelling with her might be a chance to redeem himself before the king and to return to his homeland. Maybe his last chance.

That is why he gets up to follow the stranger and her companions, even though he can sense her technological aura. But there is more to her than that, something hidden deep, something so intangible he is not quite certain he really feels it.

And then one of her followers, the scatterbrained priest, begins enthusiastically telling him of the Living One – as if he had to, really, when Dante is a priest himself and knows the prophecy... The chaos in his thoughts dies down into silence. _The Living One_.

_Her_.

Dante suddenly is afraid of what future may bring him. Afraid of the fate he chose for himself a moment ago.

. . .

He is watching her movements attentively, partly suspicious, partly judgemental, and mostly just neutral. He has joined her some time ago, he has fought beside her a few times already, they are comrades in arms, and still he cannot get rid of indifference. This is not him, not really, just a body he is watching from another place. What place? He has no idea. The only thing he know is that he left the real Dante in Cumbria, the Cumbria he remembers from his youth.

Georgiana fixes the filament, puts the tiny glass panes back into place and screws metal bolts in. Carefully, as if fearing she might have made a mistake, she turns the knob. The light bulb wakes the old lamp back to life. Its light is different than the fire, sharper, less warm, but the whole process – from single parts up to the moment when the item is complete – has something akin to magic to it. As if, slowly and uncertainly, she was creating the light with her own hands.

Dante lowers his head to stare down at the wine in his cup.

"It's just a lamp, Dante," says Georgiana quietly.

Dante glares at her grimly, but gives no answer. He thinks that maybe that is why most mages hate technology so much... Mages only borrow – from nature, from the energy weaving the universe. Technologists create – slowly, with effort, they build new things – their own, not borrowed, unlike mages' spells. And maybe that is why technologists hate mages so much – because they so often lack the joy of creation mages can find in borrowing. Dante barely remembers how it used to be when magic was a gift; now it is simply a part of his life... and a curse.

"Why do you hate technology so much?"

Dante glances up at her, tiredly.

"You think you're creating light?" he sneers. He turns away, to look at the flames burning in the fireplace. "That's just a substitute for light. It's not real. The sun is real, fire is real... But not _this_."

Georgiana switches the lamp off. "Metal and glass are as much real."

"Yes. But your light is just an illusion," says Dante coldly, trying very hard to believe his own words.

. . .

Georgiana is re-packing her backpack, systematically taking everything out and laying it on the ground. Technological rubbish, healing salves, books, papers, a tarnished camera. Under various items, there is a glint of metal: an old gear, half-broken, red with rust.

Dante comes closer, leans over and picks the gear up. His fingertips move gently, almost with yearning, along the letters blurred by time.

"Vendigroth..." he mutters under his breath.

"Excuse me?"

He gives her a tired, indifferent glance. "Vendigroth," he repeats eventually, evenly, hoping the emotions boiling inside him are not audible in his tone.

"You know where it's from?"

"I guess what that place used to be once."

He is in no mood to talk. Truth to be told, since the beginning of the journey he has never been in the mood to talk so far... Probably that is why Georgiana eventually stopped caring for his humour.

"Dante, why..." she does not finish the question, apparently convinced that asking him about anything is pointless.

"I don't hate technology," replies Dante quietly, then turns and walks away, to the edge of the camp.

He feels her eyes upon him and suddenly he is certain she knows the answer anyway. Dante does not hate technology – after all, that is the reason he has been exiled, in the first place.

. . .

He is watching as Georgiana trying to connect the ring to a capacitor, shifting the wire one way and then the other, to no avail.

Dante leans over the table and moves the wire into a correct position. They both feel tingling in their fingertips when weak electric current begins flowing through the ring.

Georgiana's head snaps up.

"Dante?"

It is a good evening, calm and serene, and for the first time since the beginning of their journey Dante smiles a little.

"I've been a revolutionary, after all, haven't I? Don't look at me like that," he adds, reading surprise on her face. "That's only basics."

"I've just never thought you were that much revolutionary." Georgiana smiles uncertainly.

"Not that much. But I was the only one not afraid to talk about it. A grave mistake," he adds, suddenly sombre. "I risked much, trying to open my country up to technology, but I failed," he explains, before she opens her mouth to ask. "I don't know if it was worth it. I don't know if I'm not stuck somewhere in the middle. Please don't ask me about it anymore."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..."

"It's all right," says Dante coolly. "Goodnight."

"Sleep calmly, Dante."

. . .

Georgiana is standing outside, head thrown back, as if she was staring into the sky, except that her eyes are closed. Arms outstretched, palms up, she is breathing slowly, deeply; it seems she is drawing something more than oxygen from the air.

"No Panarii rite looks like this," comments Dante levelly.

Georgiana opens her eyes and glances at him briefly, but does not speak, and she does not have to. Dante expects no answer; he knows the rite, has heard of it in whispered stories from the lost city.

Knows it from his own countless mornings, long, long time ago.

"Velorien?" he asks quietly.

"My family is older than you think, Dante," she answers, her eyes closed again. "We remember much." She draws a deeper breath. "Tales of the lost city, of the lost world. Pages read over candlelight. No one remembers any longer what really happened there, and how." Finally, she opens her eyes again and fully looks at him. "So many tales... Whispers in the dark." Her voice sounds bitter.

"You're still mourning their fall?" he asks. In his heart, he can find some compassion for Vendigroth and its fate, for he has seen the fall of Cumbria with his own eyes.

"Their fall? No. Lost lives. Lost, buried in sands of history, under such a thick layer that only echoes reach us. It's hard to learn from echoes."

"You believe Velorien is still out there?"

"You're going to try and convert me, mhm?"

"No. Just asking."

"I _know_ it."

"You won't answer?"

"You're not listening, Dante. I _know_ it. I can feel it, see it. I'm given what I ask for. What more proof do you need?"

"I don't. It's not about proof."

Georgiana's gaze meets his, and Dante thinks no technologist should be able to _feel_ that much instead of reasoning. It should not be like that, no, dividing the world into black and white is easier, lets him somehow quieten the irrational remorse, guilt and resentment, it is the technology that is evil and not people, not people... Dante repeats is fervently, over and over, even though he no longer believes it.

"You can't forgive he did not save your homeland, can you?"

"It's not..." He wants to protest, but he look in her eyes stops him. Denying would gain him nothing, because she _knows_. "No," he admits finally. "No, I can't."

Her hand touches his shoulder.

"Don't let Cumbria become your Vendigroth, or you'll perish with her." Georgiana pauses. "It's not your time, Dante. Not yet, you've got too much to do."

"How can you know whether it's my time? How can you..."

"I'd been praying for help, and then we found you. You can, of course, consider it just a coincidence, priest."

It is not that technology is evil and magic is good, because they are merely tools; _people_ are good and evil, and there are those in the middle, a whole spectrum of grey between black and white, but Dante is no longer able to accept it. In some twisted way this illusion allows him to live, even though he gave up on truly living – too soon, far too soon.

And now she is looking at him, not judging, just looking, almost friendly, her eyes an ocean of complicated questions Dante no longer has strength to answer.

. . .

When Georgiana puts the batteries inside, the ball crowning the device lights up with a quiet buzzing of tiny lightnings, trapped inside. Her hair bristles from the electricity; she tries to smooth it down with her hand, but her work is ruined within second. Georgiana turns the device off and it goes silent and dim. Dante thinks it should have a more magical, mystical name, for _this_ is no illusion – Tesla rod truly gives the owner power over storm and lightning.

"Tesla rod?" asks Dante. He does not have to ask, he knows, but something makes him speak. He looks aside, but not quickly enough, and she probably catches a glimmer of respect in his eyes.

Georgiana watches him intently. "You think this is another illusion?"

"No," he answers. "And here's proof." He reaches out to smooth down her hair. A spark passes between her hair and his fingers, and Dante withdraws his hand.

A spark of electricity... In the dimly lit room, for a moment it looks like a tiny light. Light, charged particles of air, a shard of lightning. A falling star?

"Almost like magic, isn't it?" asks Georgiana.

To his astonishment, Dante feels he is smiling. "Yes. Almost like magic."

. . .

Dante tries to focus on the flames in the fireplace, but once and again his eyes are drawn to the open door. A storm is raging outside, but it did not stop Georgiana from going out. She is standing in the rain, her face turned up towards the sky. She is drenched, but there is a smile on her lips – a smile which makes Dante wonder whether she is not one of the elements herself.

When Georgiana steps inside, water is dripping from her hair and clothes, pooling under her feet. She puts a blanket around her shoulders, pours herself some mulled wine and, wrapping the wool around her tightly, sits down on a bench near the fire.

Right next to Dante. Underneath the smell of wine, burning wood and rain, there is faint scent of electricity. Dante leans closer, pretending it is by accident, the tip of his nose almost touching her hair. Georgiana does not notice – her eyes are closed, her face strangely serene and happy, as if in the storm and rain she has found something unique.

Her skin smells of thunderstorm.

That night, Dante's dreams, too, smell of thunderstorm.

. . .

"And you believe you're the Living One?"

Georgiana is looking somewhere far, at the horizon, breathing deeply, enjoying the air, fresh after the rain.

"I believe I'm living. And, any moment, I have a choice which way to go next."

"You haven't answered."

"No, Dante. You haven't listened." Georgiana goes silent for a second. "We are each two paths, into light or dark. We are each a crossroad, every day and every moment." She looks at him with these eyes which see too much for a technologist. "What difference does it make if I'm the Living One?"

"Tremendous, for some."

Her eyes are drawn to the horizon again.

"I'm a mortal, and can do only as much as mortals can."

"They can change the world."

"I've never wanted that much."

"But now you have that."

"With all the responsibility."

"What are you going to do now?"

"As much as I can, as well as I can."

"And that's it? It's so easy?"

She turns to look him in the eye.

"It's _not_ easy, Dante."

Dante knows she is right, knows it only too well – even though he has an objective now, his life still lacks purpose. Georgiana comes closer, barely a step or two but it is too close, her eyes are too close. In her eyes Dante can see all the questions of the world and it is a revelation: answers are not important, only questions are, and nothing will ever be more important than the questions in her eyes.

"Dante?"

"Excuse me, I got lost in thoughts," he says gruffly.

"Come back down to earth," she says, laughing, turning it into jest.

He is infinitely grateful for it, because it means he does not have to explain anything, and he can forget the moment, push it into oblivion.

Georgiana – _Jeanna_, think Dante suddenly, calling her by the cumbrian version of her name, _Jeanna_, when he calls her that she belongs only to him – lightly touches his palm. Her hands are warm, but not warm like lamplight – warm like the sun, like fire, like magic.

"There are so many reasons to live for here," she adds, laughter gone from her voice.

He could now... Dante lets the moment pass. He is afraid of the questions in her eyes, even if they are the only sense of his life right now – _all the more_ because they are his only sense. He is afraid he might find a reason to live, but he has forgotten how to live years ago, and now all he can do is exist.

. . .

In the dim, electrical light he can see Georgiana wincing in pain. He barely manages to catch her before she falls to the ground.

"It's nothing," Georgiana manages, through clenched teeth.

"Don't be foolish, girl," retorts Dante harshly.

When he helps her sit down on the ground, he feels her clothes are wet where the blood is seeping through. He focuses – it takes no more than a blink of an eye – and his hands light up with the blue glow of healing magic. In the dark, narrow mining tunnel the brief flash is like a lightning.

"Thank you," says Georgiana quietly. She touches her side, when the wound was but a moment ago, and their fingers meet. Dante's hand jerks slightly when something dawns on him, but he does not move away.

Their fingers are sticky with her drying blood. Blood is an old magic, one of the oldest, Dante recalls, and he knows he should withdraw his hand, but does not do it, because he can feel the warmth of her skin against his. Giving in to an impulse, he opens his mouth and, in a long forgotten language, he whispers an oath into the dark. He swears on blond – that is an oath that cannot be broken – swears he will protect _her_ as long as he draws. As long as there is enough blood in his veins.

Dante gets up and helps her stand. Jayna comes over, and Dante leaves Georgiana in learned hands of the healer.

"Fool," says Loghaire, in the same ancient tongue Dante used a moment ago.

"She's the Living One, and I'm a Panarii priest. I believe I've done nothing beyond the call of my faith," replies Dante calmly.

"Everybody knows healing magic does not work on technologists. Virgil's magic doesn't work on her," remarks Loghaire. "And yours always does. Your... _faith_ must truly be strong, priest."

. . .

The sight of Vendigroth fills him with bitterness and piercing sadness. A tomb, a cemetery... Ambitions gone too far, lost hopes, dreams turned to dust.

"Ruins," says Dante quietly, to himself. Ruins – the only word that has enough depth to encompass what transpired there. "Technology was their doom."

"Technology?" echoes Georgiana. She whirls onto him, so fiercely Dante takes a step back. Her eyes are burning with anger. "Technology?"

"What else?"

"This!" She points a finger at him, accusingly. "Obstinacy, pride, arrogance, lack of understanding!"

"Lack of understanding?"

She holds his gaze for a prolonged time. "Damn you, Dante," she utters finally, voice soft and quiet, then turns and walks away.

Despite himself, Dante feels he is _alive_ again, even though he did not want it, even though he is still not certain he whether wants to truly live again. But there is this twinge in his heart and he knows that he is alive despite everything, and most of all despite himself. Alive, thanks to her. Because of her.

And that is why he has to leave.

. . .

Georgiana is standing watch – far from the fire, trying to be invisible. He should choose the other passage, should wait until morning, when everyone would be in haste getting ready for the road and he could sneak away unnoticed, he should behave sensibly. He cannot. He cannot help himself from stopping beside her one last time, from taking one last look at her face. Fool, he thinks, cursing under his breath. Utter fool.

He was going to walk past her openly, but Georgian reacts almost as if he was an intruder. In the light of suddenly activated Tesla rod her face is ghastly. His own face must look similarly; maybe that is it – a nightmare, nothing more, you will soon wake up, Dante.

Georgiana is silent, waiting for him to speak. Or maybe she is already guessing what he is going to tell her.

"I'm leaving," he announces finally, his tone dry, strange; this voice belongs to that tired priest who, in a tavern – in a tavern! – had been waiting for a better world.

Georgiana does not look surprised. "I've been wondering when you'd say that."

Dante shrugs. "There's no place for me among you anymore."

"No," she confirms coldly. "There isn't. Your own choice. As this," she gestures widely with her hand, indicating the ruins around them, the cemetery of Vendigroth's lost glory, "was their choice."

"Their? You know nothing."

"Nothing?" Her lips twist into a bitter smile. "Oh, you poor, lost priest, who failed his homeland. You weren't able to save her, and she left you to waste because you ceased being useful."

"This has nothing to do with _now_."

"You've learned nothing. Gods, so many years, and you've learned nothing..."

"And how is it you know so much about me?"

Her stare is piercing; by now, she can see through him. "I'm not Cumbria, priest. But it doesn't matter anymore. Because you're right, there's no place for you among us."

Dante stays silent. This talk was not supposed to look like this, not like this...

"Leave. Take a handful of Vendigroth ashes, so that you'll remember who you used to be, who you might have become again... And who you are."

"You have no right..."

"Leave, and never come back."

He grasps her shoulders. "You still can't comprehend magic and technology will never work together!"

Georgiana breaks away from his hold. "Magic and technology are two sides of the same coin, one worthless without the other. But you don't want to understand that, you've never wanted to. You blame the world for your mistakes, for others' mistakes, but it doesn't work that way."

Two sides of the same coin...

"_Jeanna_..."

"Leave." Georgiana turns away. "Be gone from my life. And don't come back, you hear me? Never..."

Her shoulders shake once before she manages to subdues the sobs. Dante knows this sight will be plaguing him for the rest of his life. He also knows now he has no choice but to leave. And he knows that if he leaves, he will never forgive himself.

So he stays. Despite the fact that they do not talk any longer, despite the fact that she does not even look at him. These does not matter. He made an oath, swore on her blood – on her _life_ – and that is a vow cannot be broken.

. . .

It is not until they meet Nasrudin for the second time that Dante realises what he sees, what he has seen before, but did not want to acknowledge. They arrived on Thanatos to find Nasrudin, a god, but instead they found a small wooden hut and an old man exhausted with a life too long. Discovering that Nasrudin – yes, a powerful mage, maybe the most powerful that has ever walked the soil of Arcanum – that he is as, in lack of a better word, human, that he can get tired, that he made mistakes and now is plagued with regret and guilt – all this shakes Dante to the core.

He lost Cumbria – his country, home and friends – and now the foundations of his faith are crumbling into dust, dust similar to that covering the ruins of Vendigroth. There is nothing left, and the sudden weightlessness shocks him: he is free. There is nothing left, nothing keeping him anywhere, he can seek death like salvation, because nothing is waiting for him. He can die protecting _her_, and even though it will not put anything right, maybe it will silence the remorse for one last moment.

When they are crossing the gates to the Void, Nasrudin smiles at him sadly.

"Go in peace."

Dante knows death will smell of magic and thunderstorm.

. . .

There is no last stand, no fight, because _she_ can persuade even the lord of the Void to negotiate, and Dante feels a pang of disappointment. And then suddenly the portal throws them back into the world of the living, only to explode into thousands of shards in a burst of magic a moment later. Dante has just enough time to shield Georgiana with his body.

He is lying on the ground, and the forest around them smells of pine and resin. Each breath burns, but it is of no importance. Instinct stronger than resolution wakes in him and Dante discovers he does not want to die, but it does not matter, because the earth beneath him is crimson with blood.

He is free. He has fulfilled his vow, he is paying with his own blood, he is free, for the first time in his life he is truly free.

He was right – death smells of magic and thunderstorm. And all those claiming death is cold lied, because he can feel the warmth radiating off _her_ body. Death is beautiful, he thinks looking at _her_ features, which are blurring before his eyes, and he reaches out to touch _her _cheek. So beautiful...

. . .

"Wake up, priest."

The voice seems familiar, but Dante cannot remember where he has heard it before. Slowly, he opens his eyes.

"Where am I?"

"Home," answers Jayna Stiles.

He wants to get up and off the bed, immediately, but falls back onto the pillows.

"Don't try to get up. I put a lot of effort into keeping you alive."

"Where.. what..."

Jayna sighs heavily.

"You're in Dernholm. Home."

"Maximilian..."

"High Royal Highness Maximilian," corrects the healer. "He annulled your punishment. You're no longer an exile."

"Jeanna?" involuntarily, he uses the cumbrian version of the name, not realising it is a mistake until he is already speaking it.

"_Georgiana_ left," says Jayna, and the way she pronounces the name speaks volumes: Georgiana, Dante, not Jeanna, she has never belonged to you. "You've been unconscious for almost a month, Dante."

. . .

It dawns on him _this_ is his time, yet not for departure, but for taking a step forward. He has returned to the place he was exiled from; the world came full circle, he too came full circle, turned back to the point he started from, but it is now a different place and he is a different man. He regained himself, his country, his home, but now home is just cold, empty walls, because he has lost something far more important on the way.

He remembers the meeting with Nasrudin, who turned out not to be more divine than any of them. And he remembers Nasrudin was also no less divine than any of them, and so there must be a divine element in everyone, good and evil are but their decisions, and with enough faith one person _can_ alter the universe.

"You're a fool, Dante. A fool..."

He kneels before king Maximilian – Maximilian the Exile, the king chose this name for himself, so that the Cumbrians would remember their mistake – he kneels before the king and swears fealty, because it is all he can do. There is still time to save Cumbria from ultimate fall – Maximilian will make a good, wise king, Dante is certain of it, because Maximilian does not care for power, nor wealth.

In the evening he kneels again, among four faded walls of his house. Only now he understands: he was given everything he ever asked for, he was given a chance to save his homeland, it had to happen the way it did, he was just too blind to comprehend Praetor's kingdom was not the Cumbria he had been praying for. And he was given something else, something he never asked for, because he did not dare ask anything for himself, and now he lost it by his own choice, due to stubbornness and misplaced pride. There is only one blessing left – to serve his country – and Dante cannot squander that.

"Forgive me," he whispers ardently into the dark, unsure whether he directs the words to the All-Father, or to _her_. "Forgive me..."

"Dante," calls someone softly, in _her_ voice.

Dante's head jerks up. It _is her_; she is standing at the door, he must have missed the moment she came in. She is holding a lamp: light, magic closed in glass and metal; two sides of the same coin, that is how she called it once.

"_Jeanna_..."

"Now you understand," she says, not surprised at all. She comes closer, puts the lamp on the floor and leans towards him.

Her hair, when Dante burrows his face against it, smells of thunderstorm.


End file.
